


Tender & Tired

by MysticalMaker



Category: Manic Street Preachers
Genre: Burns, Love Confessions, M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:47:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22039540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysticalMaker/pseuds/MysticalMaker
Summary: Nicky vists Richey in his Cardiff flat at the dead of the night, during a raging storm.
Relationships: Richey Edwards/Nicky Wire
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Tender & Tired

> _“ You're so fragile tonight_
> 
> _Been up hurting all night_
> 
> _It's not trivial like they think_
> 
> _Yes you're desperate and you're hurt”_

…

Cardiff in the dead of night. The rain was belting down hard on the roof, drowning out the silence of isolation. The cold silent abyss of water down below. Richey sat by the window in his flat, looking out on the dark emptiness of the night. The only source of light out in the black expanse was the moon. The usual buzzing and flickering of a street light was out due to the storm interfering with the town’s electricity. 

Richey watched from the window as the droplets of rain flowed down the glass, forming their own unique paths. However, their paths were intercepted and led to them combining with other drops of rain. One simply can’t go through life alone without being intertwined with another.

He dreaded the night. Always restless. He’d rather drink alone, just so that it means that he could sleep once in awhile. 

The floorboards were dead silent under the weight of the bare soles of his feet. The only source of light in his flat was from the candle in the center of the room, the pure naked flame. He pulled out a cigarette and placed it between his lips, the dry cold tobacco felt by the tip of his tongue. 

He approached the flame, the pool of hot wax forming a ring around the wick. Some of the wax was oozing past it’s barriers and was dripping down the side of the candlestick. The wax had then dried hard at its base, against the wooden floorboards. 

He leaned towards the candle, the flickering light illuminating his pale thin features as he delicately lit the end of the cig against the flame. The close proximity between him and the flame was intimate yet deadly. He pulled away, the glowing red embers burned as he breathed in the smoke, filling the void within him. 

Richey sat hunched over on the cold floor, his arms folded and braced on the top of his knees. He held himself together, his body and the flame being the only source of warmth in the entirety of his empty flat. 

His forearms were covered in lumps of skin. Scorched, burned and faded. It is through the sensation of pain that he felt control. He liked experiencing the healing process, watching as his self-inflicting cuts and burns formed flaking, crusty surfaces which then concealed themselves into the layers of his skin. The wounds seeping deeper into himself, into the core of his pain. Control. 

Outside there was a yell, smothered by the downpour of rain. Nicky then appeared by the doorway drenched by the rain. His scruffy white shoes were soaked, squelching against the floorboards with every step he took. 

“Thought I'd stop by for the night, to check up on you. It's too heavy to be out in that,” Nicky said, grinning. He slicked back his dark wet hair, some loose strands falling into his blue pale eyes. 

Richey hummed in response, the cigarette held between his fingers. He was hunched over on the floor, lightly reading his latest book by using the light of the candle. He then took a long slow drag from cig, the dense smoke filling the void of his lungs, lingering and suffocating, until he breathed it out. The curl of Richey’s lips as the smoke slowly faded from view. 

“What’s up with the lights?” Nicky asked, looking up to the ceiling as he shrugged off his coat.

“Power’s out.” 

Nicky then settled down next to Richey, resting on his side as he propped up his knee, his long legs stretched out before him. He watched as Richey wet his lips before taking another drag of smoke, closing his book in the process. 

“I wrote some more lyrics today,” Richey mumbled quietly as he leaned forward, resting his chin on his arm. His soft voice was delicate with an edge of bitterness as his fiddled with his toes, the cig held between his fingers. 

"Let's see then," Nicky said playfully, eagerly tapping Richey on the arm. Richey half-smiled, his eyes slightly lighting up. He slowly stood up and started roaming about his flat, reshuffling some papers by the pile next to his typewriter as he mumbled to himself. Nicky watched him and smiled. Richey seemingly like his old self again. 

He then sat back down next to Nicky with a few crinkled pages of his typed words in his hands. Richey adjusted the papers and held them up to the light for them to read, using the candle as it is their source of light. However, before Nicky could read them, Richey held the corner up against the flame. The papers caught alight, the edges began to blacken and curl as the flames licked and ate his words. Either out of protest or in a form of poetry, his words were returning to where they once came from. The void. 

Nicky watched in awe. Richey’s dark eyes were blazing. His pupils were dilated, reflecting and absorbing the heat of the flame. Nicky couldn’t look away, entranced by Richey and his beauty. The curve of his back of his hunched form with the shadow of his ribs visible. His pale skin. The scars rising to the surface of his forearm, turning a deep shade of crimson next to the heat of the flame. 

Richey stayed in his unresponsive, quiet state as he was captivated by the candle. Pure. Delicate. Controlled, yet deadly from its flame. Still held between his fingers was the cigarette, forgotten. The long end of it was blackening into ash, burning and breaking up between the folds of his fingers.

Out of the corner of Nicky’s eye, he stubbed the cigarette out on the base of his arm. The tip of it burning deep, purging a hole around it, the skin stretching and rippling underneath the heat of the cig. The skin thinned out, the end burning through multiple layers till the cigarette was extinguished, sizzling out against the red inner linings of his arm. Richey hummed. He was in control. 

... 

Tired, Nicky was not used to having such late nights. He himself preferred to be in bed by 9:00 o’clock. However, in this instance, he ought to have stayed up, trying to comfort and console in Richey, who was now curled up in front of the candle on the floor. Despite Nicky’s tall frame, his long limbs were too weak to carry Richey to bed. Instead of trying to move him to his bed, Nicky thought he would bring it to him. 

Quietly, he approached Richey’s bed. By pulling off the top blanket, Nicky spread it down over the floor at the base of Richey’s feet. He bunched up the fabric, trying to make it more comfortable for him to sleep on. 

The undersheets of his bed slightly reeked of vodka, infused by the fumes of the alcohol seeping deep into the fabric. He discarded the linen off the bed and pulled out some clean sheets that were stored away in the back of a cupboard. It was also there that he spotted a thick blanket. He pulled it out, carrying it underneath his arm while he retrieved the clean bed sheets with the other. He admitted to himself that he can never stay anywhere, including hotels while on tour, without remaking the bed. It’s just a Nicky thing. 

As he made the bed, he made sure to tuck in the loose ends of the sheets and folded the top of the cover back, forming a nice crisped fold. Satisfied with his domestic work, he then draped the thick blanket on top of Richey. He hummed drowserly in response as he wrapped his small body closer to himself. Nicky smiled lovingly down at him as he gently stroked Richey’s dark hair from out of his eyes. 

Exhausted, Nicky then laid back onto Richey’s bed, one arm positioned under his head. He watched as the warm candle light cast it’s shadows onto the ceiling, its flickering delicate nature producing patterns. Slowly, he was lured to sleep, curled up in the comfort of Richey’s bed. 

... 

However as the night dragged on, the flame of the candle was thinning out. In its frail state, it was barely functioning. A pool of wax was at its feet. Cracked, dried, solid and cold. Richey shivered. His body was too thin to contain or produce any warmth. He lay there curled up against the hard floor, the wood of the floorboards rough and splintering underneath him. 

His body was drenched in a cold sweat and the burns on his forearm were festering, the heat radiating off of them. His joints were cold and stiff and his bare feet cold as he stumbled to his bed. In the slowly darkening room, he stretched out his hand and felt the fabric, soft in his grasp. He then pulled back the covers and crawled into bed beside Nicky’s sleeping form. He was spread out across the length of the bed, his dark hair in a cluster on his pillow. Richey tried to cuddle up to him, shifting his light weight under the covers as he was desperately desiring Nicky’s warmth as his own. 

“Shit Richey. You’re freezing.”

“Come here,” Nicky mumbled in his sleepy voice, tugging Richey closer to him, “yer’ll warm up soon.”

He wrapped Richey in his long warm arms. Richey rested his head against Nicky’s chest, as Nicky pulled his cold body closer against him, trying to get him warmed up. Richey’s cold breath was against his chest and Nicky shivered in response. 

However, the burns on Richey’s arms were tender to touch and were lightly glazed over. The fabric from the sheets were roughly rubbing against the wounds, the red ooze slightly sticking to the material. Richey whimpered in pain. Nicky noticed his hesitation as Richey pulled away. 

Nicky sat up in bed, his hair in a messy array and he confronted Richey at the edge of the bed, the sheets in a cluster around him. His silhouette of his huddled frame was dimly illuminated by the flickering dying light of the candle on the floor. Richey’s head hung low, the strands of his dark hair covering his eyes. His hand clutched his forearm, his knuckles turning white. 

Nicky lowered himself down onto his knees at floor of the end of the bed, facing Richey as his pale blue eyes rested on the boy's hand-covered arm. Gently, Nicky took hold of Richey's hand. Richey gave out little whimpers and grumbles in protest. But before he knew it, Nicky had carefully peeled back his fingers from his forearm. 

Underneath, little cigarettes burns covered his pale skin. The red burns covered his skin in a form and array of scars. There were a range of them. Some were a deep crimson, fresh from the day or so before and others had faded, gifted by Richey himself, that now had taken the form of little white rings that dotted his arm. Some of these burns had completely faded away overtime and had now become a distant memory. Richey tilted his head and looked away, ashamed from his habit. 

However, suddenly Richey began to feel a soft sensation against his skin. Looking back, he saw Nicky bending down with his soft pink lips against his scarred skin. Nicky's lips were very soft and delicate as they moved across Richey's arm, giving it little kisses, some involving a fair amount of tongue to try and ease the most recent burns, giving them the willpower to heal. 

Richey was in awe at first, taken aback by his friend's actions. However, as Nicky deepen the light kisses on Richey's burns, especially the most recent ones, little gasps and moans began to escape from Richey lips, as Nicky provided relief from the soreness. The sensation of Nicky's tongue against his skin was giving him wonderful pleasurable sensations. The swirl of his tongue, it’s texture soothing and enlightening. 

He then turned Richey’s arm over and began to kiss the small inside of his wrist, a very delicate area. At the sensation of Nicky's mouth, Richey's pulse began to quicken. His heart was beating rapidly against his chest, affected his ability to concentrate. Richey slowly closed his eyes, his senses taken over by Nicky and his glorious tongue. His skin tender underneath the sensation and movements of Nicky’s tongue. God, the effect that he has on him. However, just as he had just begun, Nicky stopped. His lips and wet tongue removing themselves from Richey's heated and sensitive skin. 

Flustered, Richey slowly opened his dark eyes, his gaze landing on Nicky, whose mouth was slightly open as he was taking in deep breaths. Richey watched Nicky as he suddenly saw a flash of his tongue against those lips. He felt himself get slightly hard. The wetness of Nicky's lips still glossy on Richey's skin.

"Richey," he mumbled, and tilted up Richey’s chin by the curve of his finger. Their eyes met in the dark, the room now illuminated by the glow of the moon, seeping through the window. In the center of the space, a wrath of smoke was rising from the candle. It’s lingering flame was out and at ease. No longer captivating. No longer burning. 

"You are not your wounds. They don't take away the brilliance of that mind of yours or define who you are."

Nicky’s breath was ever so slightly on Richey’s lips. “You-you are-,” however before Nicky could say anything more, Richey gently, ever so softly, pecked his lips. Nicky’s mouth was warm against his. Richey’s lips were cold, desperately trying to deepen the kiss. Nicky’s tongue was warm in his mouth, playfully intertwining with Richey’s. Richey hummed in response, allowing Nicky more access as their mouths were on fire, their lips wet and tender against each others. 

Richey desperately took a breather, as Nicky began to kiss down Richey’s neck, biting his skin and easing it again with his soothing tongue. Richey gasped, the sensation of Nicky’s warm mouth on his skin. Nicky pushed Richey down onto the bed as he leaned over him. He straddled Richey, Nicky’s long thighs on either side of his waist, encompassing him. 

On top of him, Nicky’s long torso was bare, his pale skin illuminated in the moonlight. Under Nicky’s weight, Richey leaned up onto his elbows and left lingering kisses down his chest, his lips soft pressed against his skin, leaving a trail of wet kisses. His lips caught hold of one of Nicky’s nipples as he teased it with his teeth, his tongue flicking over the pink tip. Nicky moaned as Richey’s mouth was on him, ever so slightly teasing him with his tongue. 

Nicky lustfully grinned, pushing Richey down hard against the bed as he pinned his hands above his head. He then lowered himself over him, eagerly kissing Richey, his mouth rough against his. Nicky suddenly bit his lower lip, tasting blood and Richey moaned as he ran his tongue over his lip, easing the pain. 

Richey couldn’t remember the last time he was intimate with another. He had isolated himself for so long, out of discipline to find a sense of control. Never had he felt a need for “love”, always preferring the company of his vodka bottle at the dead of night. Soaking in and numbing his senses, the burning of the alcohol drowning out his tormented thoughts, putting his mind at ease. He believed that he was incapable of receiving “love” for it did not exist-

“I love you Richey,” Nicky said, as he softly ran his fingers through Richey’s hair as Richey rested his head on his chest, feeling the sensation of it rising and falling in time with Nicky’s breath. He lightly traced out a heart with the tip of his finger against Nicky’s skin.

“I love you too,” Richey softly mumbled, his lips brushing against Nicky’s as he said it. Both of them were tender and tired and Richey wrapped himself up against him, his legs mingling with Nicky’s as they snuggled under the bed sheet, warm. The moonlight was casting it’s light onto the cracks in the floorboards, sweeping through the window and out into the black expanse of the night. 


End file.
